Jibo

An all-star panel of researchers-turned-entrepreneurs shared their career highs and lows with local robotics researchers Monday at the closing sessions of a symposium hosted by the Wyss Institute at Harvard.More →

After smashing through its funding goal on Indiegogo last summer, and raking in a cool $2 million in an extended round, the chatty kitchen-top machine that creator Cynthia Breazeal describes “as the world’s first family robot” is back on sale. More →

Now that we are all comfortable talking to artificial personas on our smartphones — “Siri, who are the Sox playing tonight?” — Cynthia Breazeal thinks we’re ready for a robot companion that lives on the kitchen counter. Breazeal took a leave of absence from MIT, where she runs the Personal Robots Group within the Media Lab, to develop Jibo, a playful “family robot” that will cost about $500. Her company started taking pre-orders last summer.More →

This is a robot that has an eye for style. In a video released this month, a group at MIT’s Media Lab demonstrated how a group of tiny robots can track the rails of a zipper and seal you into your clothing — and you won’t need to lift a finger. More →

On Thursday night MIT held its first Women in Innovation and Entrepreneurship networking reception in the sparse and modern Gagosian-like gallery space of the MIT Media Lab.

The event was organized and hosted by two of MIT’s most prominent women in tech, Erika Ebbel Angle, founder and chairman of Science for Scientists, and Marina Hatsopoulos, founder and former chief executive of Z Corporation. These leading women entrepreneurs, along with keynote speaker Cynthia Breazeal, did not mince words as they took the podium. They were direct about their intention to improve the opportunities for women in tech. And they provided perspectives on running the million dollar companies they founded at MIT over the past few years.More →

Steve Chambers says he first heard about the “social robotics” startup Jibo in late 2013, when two friends mentioned the startup to him within two hours on the same day. At the time, Chambers was running worldwide sales, marketing, and business development for Nuance, the publicly held speech recognition company in Burlington. Chambers says he couldn’t leave that post immediately, but he joined Jibo’s board last September as executive chairman, and helped founder Cynthia Breazeal raise $25 million in new funding.

Today, the Weston company is announcing that Chambers, a veteran of both the speech recognition and videoconferencing industries, is joining Jibo as its new CEO.More →

In the middle of July, two local entrepreneurs launched “crowdfunding” campaigns two days apart. They were seeking enough preorders from customers to help them start making new products. One was a sleek aluminum iPad stand called the SlingAmp, priced at about $35. The other was Jibo, a $600 robot that will be able to do things like coordinate family schedules and read bedtime stories.More →

But Jibo wants to be the first multi-purpose robot for your home — a countertop assistant that can snap family photos, remind you of the day’s schedule, relay messages, entertain children with interactive stories, and facilitate videoconferences. The $499 product is being unveiled today, but won’t be available until late in 2015.More →

I’ve been following Jibo since last January, when I first told you the “social robot” startup had snagged some initial funding from Charles River Ventures. Now, Jibo founder Cynthia Breazeal has taken a leave from MIT’s Media Lab to run the company. Jibo has brought on some additional investors, and begun hiring a handful of employees from companies like iRobot Corp. and Netflix. And a new placeholder website and Facebook page suggest an unveiling of the product is imminent.More →